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300,000 phone numbers that use WhatsApp are published on the internet and accessible through a simple Google search.

Numbers that in principle should correspond to the business version of the popular application, but whose list also contains private numbers .

This is due to one of the most unknown functions of WhatsApp, known as click to chat, which allows you to start a conversation with other users without having your mobile phone number saved .

It is a discovery by researcher Athul Jayaram who has collected more than 300,000 phone numbers from specific searches. Public information available to anyone that can be used for malicious purposes such as cyber attacks.

According to Jayaram, mobile numbers "are visible in plain text" from those specific searches and warns of their dangers: "As phone numbers are leaked an attacker can send messages, call them, or sell this data to third parties such as spammers or scammers. "

Fortunately, searches do not return the full name of the owners of this phone. However, in many cases, their profile picture is visible, which can provide valuable information to malicious actors or trolls .

The computer researcher shared his findings with Facebook, the company that owns WhatsApp, seeking to get a reward for discovering a security flaw.

However, Facebook refused to give any kind of reward, claiming that "it did not meet the requirements" as it simply "contained a search engine index of the URLs that WhatsApp users decided to make public ."

Despite not receiving financial recognition, the truth is that WhatsApp did make changes and eliminated the indexing of some leaked numbers to Google.

However, the phones are still available on Google through other specific searches.

How do I know if my number is affected?

One of the most common solutions to this problem that circulates on the Internet is knowing how to perform a specific search in the "wa.me" domain. However, this formula no longer yields results.

If you want to know if your number has been exposed, you must enter the following Google search discovered by Genbeta:

site: https: //api.whatsapp.com/send? phone = +34 XXX

You must replace the three Xs with the first three digits of your mobile number to find out if your phone has been leaked.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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